Hellbrun Zoo

Bear posing for photos at Hellbrun Zoo today.

This zoo is next to Hellbrunn castle and was originally created by the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg 300 years ago who was following the Baroque fashion of keeping exotic animals. It has since been extended and modernised to become Salzburg Zoo with around 800 animals of 140 different types. It feels a relaxed zoo experience in quite an unusual setting that uses the rocks of the Hellbrunn mountain as part of the enclosures and also incorporates woods and rivers. There are quite a lot of alpine and mountain animals, which I hadn't really seen before, as well as big ones such as lions, tigers, cheetahs, bears and wolves. I also had some good spinach and gorgonzola dumplings in the restaurant.